The Online Shopping Thread

This is a discussion on The Online Shopping Thread within Gadgets, Computers & Software, part of the Shifting gears category; I ordered a Fujitsu lifebook laptop from PayTM on November 4 for Rs.24,899. This was my first buy from PayTM. ...

I ordered a Fujitsu lifebook laptop from PayTM on November 4 for Rs.24,899. This was my first buy from PayTM. I was in a hurry as this was for my 10-year old son, and since I used to buy a lot of stuff from Amazon and SD without a single issue, I think I was a bit overconfident. To cut the story short, let me admit I ordered the lifebook without even thinking twice.

The price of the product was Rs. 24800 + 99 shipping and out of these PayTM has promised a "Paytm wallet" of Rs 3472, which was a good deal.

The product was shipped from Sirsa, Haryana via India Post and I immediately smelled a rat. I told my concerns to my wife ignoring my son who was keenly listening, it had turned out. Without telling me anything he did "research" in Google and when the package arrived - both me and my wife were not in home at that time - the little one was ready with his trusty "assistant", his grandma. He asked his grandmother to shoot an unpack video while he unpacked the package.

The package contained a junk, 2004 model, Compaq laptop.

By the time we reached home the little one was ready with his unpacking video and stills of the "product". I then raised a ticket in PayTM and uploaded the snaps. I received the standard regret emails as expected and I learnt that they are "evaluating the sale and my return request". I am also been told that "kindly have some patience" as they need time to "reach out to the vendor". The name of the vendor was M/s Khushi Enterprises and Web designing center, #59, AJAY VIHAR MARKET, Huda Road,Sirsa, Haryana

Almost a week passed and nothing happened. So I uploaded the video in YT but not published it and I then tweeted the URL to the top guy of PayTM.

30 minutes later I received a phone call from PayTM and 24 hours later I received an email instructing me how to ship back the "Product" to the vendor. I shipped the product back via BlueDart, paying 1085 rupees out of my pocket. Nevertheless, it was a moment of joy for me since the junk lappy that's spreading negative energy is now finally out of my home.

Eight days after the junk reached its rightful owner, and two further reminder tickets in PayTM, I received a refund of Rs 21427, exactly 31 days after I placed the order.

I am not blaming anyone but me for this fiasco, and posting this here just FYI. Thanks for your patience and time for reading this long post.

I am not blaming anyone but me for this fiasco, and posting this here just FYI. Thanks for your patience and time for reading this long post.

I don't think you have to blame yourself as well because even if you had spent a lot of time thinking about it before purchase, you would never have figured out that you would receive a totally different model.

This only shows PAYTM's poor control over its merchants and that e-commerce is not as easy as what we all think it could be ( it takes years to build a good merchant base and some intelligent data mining to catch such frauds and prevent them ) - hopefully PAYTM has learnt its lesson and putting fixes in place. Apart from their attractive cash backs, they have very little to go for themselves IMO. I use them quite regularly though

I am not blaming anyone but me for this fiasco, and posting this here just FYI.

i have been eyeing this model for quite sometime. I have purchased three laptops on paytm and not had any issue. I guess you have checked the sellers feedback prior to ordering? I do not buy high value items if I can't find the same seller on eBay and/or snapdeal/fk. It's good that you took the video and I always do so too. It's crazy that people can be such cheats and expect to get away with it. Btw this same model was available for 18k after cash back over the past year.

I guess you have checked the sellers feedback prior to ordering? I do not buy high value items if I can't find the same seller on eBay and/or snapdeal/fk. ...Btw this same model was available for 18k after cash back over the past year.

That's why I said I am the only one to be blamed. Secondly I live in Kerala where a lot of online retailers won't ship products. For eg: FlipKart. This is because a court case between them and the Kerala Government. In Kerala people adopt new tech/practices/policies much faster and widespread than even metros, but the establishment - govt/unions/"intellectuals"/organisations- are always against change. Once they were anti-computerisation and anti-ATM; now they are anti-Uber and anti-eCash.

The search for the lappy continues, and I am about to post a query in TeamBHP Laptop thread. Thanks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by narayan

This only shows PAYTM's poor control over its merchants.... I use them quite regularly though

Maybe when a merchant posts such (relatively) high-value products like the Fujitsu, PT can ask him to send them his purchase/import invoice from Fujitsu or it's country rep before listing the product. A scanned copy of a purchase invoice of 12 laptops means the merchant genuinely has 12 laptops to sell. Just my 2c.

30 minutes later I received a phone call from PayTM and 24 hours later I received an email instructing me how to ship back the "Product" to the vendor. I shipped the product back via BlueDart, paying 1085 rupees out of my pocket.

They didn't refund you the shipping charges?

Why on earth would you pay for shipping a product thats fake/used and a blatant attempt at cheating you. Thumbs down for Paytm if they didn't refund your shipping charges.

I have also noticed another thing. Call centre employees of Flipkart and Amazon sound educated and can talk to you in English. But thrice I have had the displeasure of talking with Paytm call centre and each time the person on the other side had very poor speaking skills.

Recently ordered 2 watches from amazon.in through their global store. It was shipped from US and delivered at my door step on the 8th day. The price I paid (including customs duty) was half of what it costs in the market here. Only thing was that i had to upload a copy of my id for customs clearance. There was also a no questions asked 30 day international return policy. The whole experience was so smooth. Nothing beats amazon, that is why they are so successful.

I have never ordered anything other than the amazon fulfilled items from amazon.in. That maybe the reason why i have never had a bad experience from amazon.

Cloudtail, a JV between Amazon Asia and Infosys founder Narayan Murthy’s personal investment vehicle Catamaran, posted over 300% jump in revenues to Rs 4,591 crore.
...
A year ago, Cloudtail had clocked sales of Rs 1,145 crore.
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But for all its success, Amazon is scrambling to reduce its dependence on Cloudtail which as of now accounts for over a third of the sales that take place on its shopping platform in India

I have never ordered anything other than the amazon fulfilled items from amazon.in. That maybe the reason why i have never had a bad experience from amazon.

Customer service is the differentiator. Amazon offers excellent after sales support. I've had good experience with both amazon fulfilled and seller fulfilled returns. They are prompt and the expreience in dealing with them is good and easy.

As a result, my shopping on Flipkart has dwindled for no fault of Flipkart.

The name of the vendor was M/s Khushi Enterprises and Web designing center, #59, AJAY VIHAR MARKET, Huda Road,Sirsa, Haryana

Hey, I was at the receiving end of a seller by the same name . I had purchased a DSLR from Amazon and received a pack of junk jewellery instead. That was a seller fulfilled transaction and Amazon took couple of weeks to refund the amount under their A to Z guarantee.

Sister orders a Moto G4 plus yesterday with exchange of her old phone. Order is processed and shipped as well. This morning she receives a message saying order is cancelled. Multiple calls to customer care, they advice to re-order with COD as bank didn't transfer the money to Amazon.

Unfortunately now our location doesn't have the option of exchange!! Customer care cannot help as well.

So I had my first bad online shopping experience in 10 years. We ordered a sofa from Inkgrid.com . Had originally seen it on pepperfry but always while arranging for someone to collect the old sofa, the new one used to go out of stock on pepperfry. I managed to find the same brand on inkgrid and placed the order which said that it would ship in 3 days. So we gave away the old sofa while waiting for this one as our friend was shifting and had the tempo at her disposal.
So the expected delivery date comes and no contact from them whatsoever. No one is answering the single customer care number and not responding to emails. Finally got a reply that it would ship from Jodhpur factory the next day. Again the delivery date comes and goes with no sign of it and as usual noone is answering their number or responding to mails. Then we see a few bad reviews of a similar type online. We couldnt cancel the credit card transaction since it was past the 48hr window and its a fraud case so the bank cannot help directly. Also sent a mail to the manfacturer asking if they are associated with inkgrid and they denied saying they are only with pepperfry and the sofa is imported and doesnt come from Jodhpur.
We again got a random mail from them saying that the sofa would be dispatched on the 28th and we will get it by the 5th of Jan. As usual no answer on their phone or email and you cannot post on their FB page. We sent a mail to cancel and refund the money but no reply.
How should we proceed ? Wait till 5th and then file a claim with the Cyber Crime cell of Police ? The company has their address stated as Delhi.

Please avoid Inkgrid.com guys it seems to be scam site even though things look legit.

So the expected delivery date comes and no contact from them whatsoever. No one is answering the single customer care number and not responding to emails. Finally got a reply that it would ship from Jodhpur factory the next day. Again the delivery date comes and goes with no sign of it and as usual noone is answering their number or responding to mails. Then we see a few bad reviews of a similar type online. We couldnt cancel the credit card transaction since it was past the 48hr window and its a fraud case so the bank cannot help directly. Also sent a mail to the manfacturer asking if they are associated with inkgrid and they denied saying they are only with pepperfry and the sofa is imported and doesnt come from Jodhpur.

Not sure on what you should do now, as I never do "online" shopping of any kind. Do talk to a lawyer at the earliest, preferably one with knowledge of cyber-thingy laws of such nature. Then hope and pray that the money comes back. Scary how virtual thugs spend such time and effort to perpetuate a hoax, no pride in ethics anymore?

Here's what you should do to bring new sofas to your home, though.. DON'T look for them online. Go to a decent furniture maker near your home and have it customised to your taste or get one of the ready models after checking for comfort and space.

I've sat in a online-thingy furniture at a colleague's house.. most uncomfortable sofa I've sat in thus far and it costed 3x more than what I'd paid for the ones at home. The under-thigh support was not there and the cushion had an arch which was firm and the "leather" was slippery to say the least. In comparison we customized the set to have low-density foam overall and 3 inch deep fibre-filling over the arm-rest portions and chose the rexine leather of best quality (very pliable, grippy and soft, hard to tear/crack). The price for 3+1+1? A shocking 24k total, 3 years ago, though. There are far too many factors for sofa buying which an online buying process simply cannot satisfy in my view, maybe a few have gotten lucky but I wouldn't go that route.

Can't the bank hold the payment? I had a weird experience while buying first day covers for my father on the indiapost philately site. [OT: One of the worst sites ever!] Ordered the cover paid with cc but got no confirmation mail from them and order history showed as payment not received.

No proper customer care exists in that site and whatever mails i sent to whatever customer care mail id i found on that site got me no replies.

Called up icici customer care, explained my predicament to them and without any hassle whatsoever they blocked that payment to the vendor.

After a few days i ended up receiving the cover which i had ordered, called up icici again told them all is well. they then proceeded to release the payment to vendor.